Leading Innovation

TEACHER / PROFESSOR

• Prof Walter Van Dyck, Associate Professor of Technology & Innovation Management at Vlerick Business School (Programme Director)
• Prof Koen Tackx, Professor of Marketing & Strategy at Vlerick Business School
• Guy Wollaert, former Chief Innovation Officer of The Coca Cola Company, CEO of Idea-Value-Impact Advisory Services.

Short Description of the course

Disruption is becoming the new normal, and the pace of change increases every day. So how can you stay competitive? The answer is that companies have to create, innovate and roll out new business ideas at a rapid pace. Those new business ideas cover small, incremental innovations that will perfect your existing business, and the radical innovations that will improve your business performance over the longer term. But how do you manage this process? How to turn your organisation into an innovation engine fueled for growth? This programme gives you the tools you need to design, change, manage, and implement effective innovation processes. In addition to that, you will learn what the characteristics of an innovation leader are and how to embed a culture of innovation within your organisation.

course Programme / detailed overview

Module 1: Developing your vision on Innovation

• Why do we innovate?
• What is the impact of living in times of exponential change?
• How can you make your company / product / service more relevant today?
• Which dynamics lead to the disruptive innovations that shake up entire industries? How can you respond to the transformation of your industry? Different types of companies need different approaches.
• Innovation strategy simulation: making tough product portfolio decisions and how to allocate your innovation budget?

Module 2: Organising your innovation process:

• Managing the core business:
  • From innovation ambition to an implementable concept.
  • How can design-thinking help you optimise & transform your core business?
  • Understand the use and practice of hackathons, incubators & accelerators, innovation boot camps, and corporate venturing.
  • How do you manage the ‘fuzzy front-end’ and the ‘speedy back-end’ of your innovation process?
  • How to improve the success rate of new product development?
  • Business Model Innovation:
    • Which intrapreneurial processes can you set up to capture disruptive ideas outside your core business?
    • What can you learn from outside-in innovation?
    • How to lead and benefit from your innovation eco-system
• Company visit & workshop: Aerocircular

Module 3: The innovative leader: the profile

• What does it take to become a values-based innovation leader?
• Embedding a culture of innovation: how to instil the willingness and ability of your business to become an innovation leader in your field?
• Which leadership approach does intrapreneurship require?
• How to lead and inspire your innovation eco-system?
• Balancing creativity and discipline

Module 4: Implementing your industry-specific innovation concept

• Different approaches according to your context: science/technology/service industry
• Implementing an experience-based innovation concept: testimonial from The Coca-Cola Company

TARGET students

• • CEOs and owner-managers of medium- to large-size companies
  • Innovative organisations that disrupt industries and develop new markets.
  • Historically successful organisations who have transformation & responding to disruption high on the agenda.
  • R&D, Innovation, Business Unit and Business Development, both manager and director levels, who have the mandate to shape the innovation process and its organisational design

Learning outcomes

• Identify the patterns that lead to transformation & disruption.
• Determine how you can respond to the transformations within and outside your industry in order to leapfrog the competition.
• Formulate your own inspiring values-based vision on Innovation.
• Know which competencies you should uniquely master to realise your vision for innovation
• Create your growth roadmap for the future, transforming your core business.
• Develop intrapreneurial processes to capture disruptive ideas outside your core business.
• Find the right balance between company-internal and external or open innovation.
• Discover what it takes in terms of mind-set and capabilities to become an innovation leader.